Musk distances Tesla’s brand from carbon consumptive crypto – Bitcoin on a dive
Due to environmental concerns, customers will no longer be able to choose Bitcoin as a means of payment
Elon Musk’s Twitter power is repainting Bitcoin graphs, after he announced the halt of all transactions between Tesla and consumers over his personal account, stating that cryptocurrencies were a great idea, but the environmental cost was just too high.
The late decision of the electronic vehicle manufacturer caused an immediate dive of Bitcoin, from $54,000 to $46,294, according to coindesk.com. Stabilisation seems to have set in since then at around $48,000.
Tesla being marketed as a green automobile renaissance towards the future, had been a target of critics for a while, due to the support of the carbon footprint stegosaurus that Bitcoin is. The step away from Bitcoin can therefore be understood as a move towards more consistent branding.
While the PayPal-father Elon Musk has proven time and time again to have a major influence on the speculative value of cryptos, pushing the graphs by simply making tweets, the loss of Tesla as a Bitcoin vendor sets a tone.
Concerns about the huge carbon footprint of Bitcoin were thought to be an issue to soon pull the value down for a while, which is likely the reason this move did not only affect Bitcoin, but also other major cryptos that had previously been on an upwards trend. Ethereum, polkadot and dogecoin all fell linked to the tweet.
Graph provided by coindesk.com
Musk, a man who had effectively used meme-marketing, not fighting jokes surrounding his personality online, but instead embracing them, had also been the most ardent advocate of dogecoin.
Wednesday, May 12, a day before the Tesla BTC exodus announcement and on the same account, Musk had set up a poll asking his followers the question if Tesla should accept Dogecoin. To no surprise, the overwhelming majority of the fans surrounding the crypto influencer billionaire hit the yes button.
Since Musk wishes to return to crypto as soon as an eco-friendly solution is found, the dogecoin might actually take the Bitcoin’s place.
While not being internally green, the Dogecoin uses significantly less energy with 0,12 kilowatt hours than the Bitcoin with 147,8 terawatt hours, according to yahoo finance.
The call for greener crypto has persisted and recently seen the launch of the Chia on May 3, a supposedly eco alternative using disc memory instead of processing power, AIBC News reported.
An evaluation and comparison of Chia is difficult at this early stage, however the high demand in hard drives will likely cause large amounts of trash as the use spreads.
In contrast to the strong change in policy by Tesla, the company will not sell any of its Bitcoin, an announcement which likely cushioned the fall.
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